Review: Hunger – An Unnatural History by Sharman Apt Russell

by Kim on March 9, 2010 · 10 comments

Post image for Review: Hunger – An Unnatural History by Sharman Apt Russell

Title: Hunger: An Unnatural History
Author: Sharman Apt Russell
Genre: Nonfiction
Year: 2005
Acquired: Library (upon @BibioEva’s Twitter suggestion)
Rating: ★★★½☆

One Sentence Summary: Hunger: An Unnatural History is an overview of the science, sociology, and moral implications of hunger and it’s impact across the globe.

One Sentence Review: This book covers a little too much territory for my tastes, but it still provides a well-written and important overview of the impact of hunger on an individual and society. Read the rest of this post after the jump →

{ 10 comments }

The Sunday Salon: Some Scholars on Blogging/Journalism Ethics

by Kim on March 7, 2010 · 10 comments

The Sunday Salon.comI didn’t get much reading done this week, which is too bad because I got two books from inter-library loan (The Magicians by Lev Grossman and Making Toast by Ron Rosenblatt) that I only have 14 days to read! Gah!

Instead of reading, I’ve been working on a mid-term paper about the ethics of objectivity and transparency for bloggers. It’s a short-ish paper, but it’s leading to a much longer paper that’s going to look at these issues for book bloggers in context of the FTC disclosure guidelines. Don’t worry, I’ll be sharing a lot more about that soon.

Read the rest of this post after the jump →

{ 10 comments }

Comments, Categories, and Social Media — Oh My!

March 4, 2010 Blog Improvement Project

I’m combining three of blog-business posts into one with this, because I don’t like it when my blog gets overrun with posts not actually about books.  This week, Weekly Geeks wanted to look at commenting, a topic I think is really important to think about as a blogger. The task for the Blog Improvement Project is to look into categories and tags — two administrative tools that help keep blogs organized and can help search engines find you blog. And finally, a few bloggers (My Friend Amy, Beth Fish Reads, others?) posted social media policies yesterday, which inspired me to do the same

14 comments Read the full post →

Let’s Chat Tonight on ‘That’s How I Blog!’

March 2, 2010 News and Notes
Thumbnail image for Let’s Chat Tonight on ‘That’s How I Blog!’

I’m so excited to share that I get to be a guest on That’s How I Blog, a show hosted by Nicole of Linus’s Blanket. We’ll be chatting about books and blogging and gossip, starting tonight, March 2 at 8 p.m. CST. Then at the end we’ll talk about Susan Jane Gilman’s memoir Undress Me In the Temple of Heaven!

6 comments Read the full post →

Review: Memoir – A History by Ben Yagoda

March 1, 2010 Book Review
Thumbnail image for Review: Memoir – A History by Ben Yagoda

One Sentence Summary: Memoir: A History is exactly what the title implies — an overview of how memoirs have evolved from the early days of spiritual autobiography to the current trends of celebrity memoir and contested truth.

One Sentence Review: This book is a must read for anyone interested in reading memoirs or enjoys talking about truth and writing and how we’ve gotten to the type of memoirs we can read today.

16 comments Read the full post →

The Sunday Salon: Connecting Through Notes Left in Books

February 28, 2010 Sunday Salon

I was reading one of my new library books recently, Hunger: An Unnatural History, and came across a checkout receipt from another patron. That person checkout the book on September 17, 2007 from the Sequoya Branch Library at 3:44 p.m. They also checked out The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science. I wonder what kind of person would check out both of those books at the same time?

37 comments Read the full post →

Narrative Nonfiction 5: Living “Current” Events

February 26, 2010 Narrative Nonfiction 5
Thumbnail image for Narrative Nonfiction 5: Living “Current” Events

The inaugural edition of Narrative Nonfiction 5 features five books by authors that went in-depth covering “current” events in the United States. I put current in quotes because most of these books are more than 10 years old, which makes current a bit of a stretch. Still, I’m fairly confident many of these issues haven’t changed so much that the lessons of the story aren’t relevant today.

25 comments Read the full post →

A New Feature: Narrative Nonfiction 5

February 25, 2010 Narrative Nonfiction 5
Thumbnail image for A New Feature: Narrative Nonfiction 5

One goal I set for myself this year is to do more with nonfiction on my blog. One way I’ve decided to do that is through a new semi-weekly feature: Narrative Nonfiction 5. Every few weeks or so, Narrative Nonfiction 5 will feature a list of five nonfiction books on a particular theme.

As the title suggests, I’m focusing specifically on narrative nonfiction. That term can encompass a lot of things, but for me it means nonfiction books that use techniques of fiction — plot, characters, dialogue, symbolism — to tell a good, true, story.

19 comments Read the full post →

Review: Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott

February 23, 2010 Book Review
Thumbnail image for Review: Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott

One Sentence Summary: In this memoir, Lamott explores moments that test faith and explore her own quirky relationship with God.

One Sentence Review: If you can enjoy Lamott’s neurotic but open personality, Traveling Mercies is a joy to read.

14 comments Read the full post →

Winner of ‘Waiting for Columbus’

February 22, 2010 News and Notes
Thumbnail image for Winner of ‘Waiting for Columbus’

Thank you to everyone for entering my contest to give away a signed copy of Waiting for Columbus by Thomas Trofimuk. After counting the entries and turning to the random number generator, the winner is…

Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays!

Congrats Jeanne, and the book is on the way :)

5 comments Read the full post →

← Previous Entries